Ink
by celeria
Summary: Rapidly covering more than two years in the HP universe, this is the story of Ron and Hermione's engagement. Not everyone is happy about it. Ron/Hermione, unrequited-Harry/Ron, unrequited-Ginny/Hermione.
1. The Colour of Your Heart

Rapidly covering more than two years in the HP universe, this is the story of Ron and Hermione's engagement. Not everyone is happy about it. Based on and inspired by the following lines in _OotP_.

"... And it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think I am too," Hermione added as an afterthought.

"But I don't think you're ugly," said Harry, bemused.

And thus, with some slashification in mind, the Ink series was born. Pairings include Ron/Hermione, unrequited-Harry/Ron, and unrequited-Ginny/Hermione. This is set in a bit of an AU, in which the war has been won and everything is lah-dee-dah (which happens in the rapid covering of the more than two years). This is Part One, Harry's side of the story. It's also a bit shorter than the others because, well, frankly, I'm just not that good at writing Harry.

* * *

Afterward, he thinks about what he said to Hermione and wonders if he sounded completely stupid. The look on her face, of course – those brown eyes rolling just a bit, the patient smile on her face that transformed into an immediate, although not mean-spirited laugh – well, he supposes that that look said it all, really. All right, fine, so he _did_ sound completely stupid. He tries not to think about that. Tries not to think about the way Seamus and Dean and even Neville, on occasion, spend their time groaning and sighing and giggling like girls over, well, _girls_, and how he feels like that part of him must be stunted. He's too busy staying alive for the sake of the wizarding world to worry about girls, and how is he supposed to concentrate on what to do about having a crush on Cho if he's afraid he won't be alive tomorrow to have a crush on her?

Anyway, he meant it, what he said – he certainly doesn't think she's ugly, the same way he doesn't think most of his friends are ugly. Ginny's not ugly. Neville's not ugly, although he could stand to cut back on the bangers and mash at dinner, but he can hardly compete with Dudley, and that's the most important thing, Harry smirks. Dean and Seamus aren't ugly. And Ron – Ron is most definitely not ugly, either.

What does he call Ron, anyway? He would say that Cho is _pretty_, that he _fancies_ Cho, but he can't say that Ron is pretty, because Ron would deck him if he heard Harry calling him "pretty," and he certainly doesn't fancy him, because you just don't fancy your best mate. What do you say about a boy, a boy with flaming red hair and a nose that's still too long for his face, even after the three growth spurts in the last four years, a boy in hand-me-down robes who can't pick a most prized possession because he has five brothers and one sister and two parents who are all more important than broomsticks and books? Is he _handsome_? Is he _cute_? Is he – Harry has no bloody idea, really, and he shoves his star chart across the table and buries his unruly dark head in his hands, because it's impossible to think about stars and planets when you're still working on the definitions of the words "handsome" and "cute."

Sometimes Harry lies in bed late in the mornings, the curtains pushed back to let the morning sunshine stream into the high windows of Gryffindor Tower, watching Ron dress and brush his hair out of his eyes, standing before a full-length walking mirror that he's conjured up from somewhere in the castle. "What d'you think, Harry?" Ron asks, frowning critically at his reflection, which looks slightly taller and thin in the warped old glass. "Do these robes look awful on me? They do, don't they. They make my feet look too big. And my tie – " He frowns, straightening it, a little yank and tug at the place on his neck that looks very soft and white to Harry. "They don't make me look real great at all, do they?"

"I think you look great," Harry replies, looking up from the first volume of _Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against the Dark Arts_, happy to have found a good, general, non-descript word for how he thinks Ron looks. _Great_ – that's a suitable word, isn't it? Maybe not quite enough to say exactly how he feels about his best mate, but close enough …

Ron grins sheepishly and Banishes the mirror back to its usual resting place. "Thanks, Harry, mate. Now, listen, erm – don't tell Hermione I was, you know, using the mirror, okay? She might, uh, she might want to know why I, um, can't do a Banishing charm properly in class."

Harry can't help grinning; Ron's reasoning sounds utterly stupid, and he wonders if he sounded quite that slow talking to Hermione at dinner the other night. But he promises, smiling at Ron, because that's what you do for a best mate; you keep his secrets, and you also keep secrets from him.

Because it _is_ a secret, isn't it, that Harry thinks his best mate is great-looking, that he likes to watch him while he flies on the Quidditch field, that he wonders what Ron's thinking about as Ron drifts off the sleep in the privacy of his own bed at night. It must be a secret that he's strangely jealous when Ron and Hermione finally stop squabbling and start kissing and dating, and that he's not jealous of Ron – he's jealous of Hermione.

It must be a secret because he doesn't know who in the world would understand. Bugger, even _he_ doesn't understand. It doesn't make sense that he should think his best mate is cute, and handsome, and athletic, and wonderful, but somehow the only name that he can manage when he rubs the tip of his thumb over his cock is Ron's. He wonders if Hermione does the same to Ron, if she wraps her fingers around his cock and rubs gently, if Ron sighs her name, if he even thinks about anyone else. He wonders if Hermione puts her hand against Ron's chest when he comes, right over the place where his heart beats below the soft fuzz of red hair, the way he imagines doing.

It's a spring day at the end of their seventh year when Hermione and Ron ask him and Ginny to come into the common room, they've got some news. Harry and Ginny exchange quick, dubious looks and stand dutifully silent when Hermione and Ron tell them that they're getting married in a year and a half, that they've been engaged for two weeks, that they're so excited. Ginny gives him another quick look and then bursts into a spontaneous fit of tears, and Ron and Hermione go to hug her while Harry watches. He's grateful for the distraction, but he feels like there's a huge hole punched in his body where his stomach used to be, and now he wonders what it looked like when Ron pulled his heart from his body and handed it to Hermione.


	2. The Colour of Water

Rapidly covering more than two years in the HP universe, this is the story of Ron and Hermione's engagement. Not everyone is happy about it. Part Two, Ginny's POV.

* * *

She knew it was coming, and when they finally gather her and Harry together in the common room, and show off the ring that probably exhausted several years' worth of Ron's pocket money, her tears are not surprised ones. And Ginny knows from the way her brother and Hermione are looking at her, excited and bashful and beaming all at once, they must assume that her tears are happy ones, tears of joy that she'll finally have a sister, and maybe some nieces and nephews someday, and she's content to let them go on thinking that. She's not about to ruin their happy news by disclosing any of her own feelings, and from the stunned, board-stiff look on Harry's face, she thinks that he must have some feelings of his own. And so she burst into a flood of practiced tears, because that's what girls do when they get good news and when their dreams come crashing down.

She wonders, because she can feel Harry sneaking looks at her, exasperated in the way of older brothers ready to thump their little sisters on the head, if he knows just why she's crying. She's sure that if he thinks about it for a few minutes, he might figure it out, because he looks at her brother the same way she looks at her brother's fiancée. But then, Harry's a boy and boys aren't necessarily good at noticing the little things that add up to the sum of an obsession, so no – maybe he really has no idea.

Ginny does, of course. She's watched them and seen, she's listened and heard, she knows that Harry is in love with Ron, even if he doesn't quite think of it that way. She knows that Harry watches him on the Quidditch field, ostensibly because he still helps Ron with his skills as a Keeper, but mainly because he wants to see the lines of her brother's long, lanky body folding themselves close around his broomstick. She knows that he keeps his back toward Ron while they change for bed, and the thought always makes her giggle a little – a mean little giggle, but an involuntary one. She knows that he runs through words in his head, trying to think of a good one to describe Ron, but he can never quite find one. He bypasses the word "love."

Ginny has never hesitated to apply the word "love" to her feelings for Hermione.

Today she stares at her brother and her future sister-in-law, at her friend and almost-brother who is looking at them with equally shocked green eyes, and she wills her lips to curl up into a bit of a smile. It feels terribly forced to her, but it must be all they can see, because they both hug her, hard, the way you hug a sister.

She tries hard not to think about the other things – homework and parchment and late-night chats and cocoa and beds shared with Hermione, braiding eachother's hair with quick, certain fingers brushing at the scalp. Summer nights have always been the best, the two of them in just one quiet little room at the Burrow, hiding under the eaves and giggling until the sky turns the colour of a new strawberry. Sometimes she takes Hermione's hand after her best friend falls asleep, and the warm pressure of her fingers in Ginny's coaxes Ginny into slumber, too.

There have been fall mornings at Hogwarts, rushing down to breakfast before the boys so they can go for a quick early walk together. Hermione loves the changing leaves that turn red and orange and gold like Ginny's hair, saying they remind her of her home. Ginny doesn't quite understand it because after all, if you want red and orange leaves, you can just _magic_ them that way, but Hermione insists that it's different. "You're missing the point, Gin," she teases, tapping one especially wide leaf on top of Ginny's head.

"What's your point?" Ginny asks lazily, pointing her wand to the top of her head and muttering a spell so the leaf turns purple between Hermione's fingers. Sometimes she misses and accidentally turns her hair a different colour too, and that makes Hermione laugh. Ginny cherishes the sound of her laughter mingling with the crisp morning air.

She remembers Christmas her fourth year at Hogwarts, Christmas on the closed ward at St. Mungo's, and it would have been a dismal holiday if Hermione hadn't been there, holding her hand and resting her chin in the soft fire-perfume of Ginny's red hair. At Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, Hermione held her until she could sleep – first just her hand, then an arm around her chilly shoulders, then a full hug that warmed Ginny until she could stop shaking. It reminded Ginny of summer nights holding Hermione's hand, except that summer had always been fun, and that was an awful Christmas season.

She remembers the easy light of springs past, when everything seems to come alive on the Hogwarts grounds. There are late-night Quidditch practices that Hermione attends sometimes, to watch Ron, and Ginny can pretend that Hermione is there to see her. They get more coursework in the springtime, which means that she and Hermione are nearly always up together, and sometimes Ginny just doodles and scribbles on her parchment, any excuse to sit up late with Hermione. There are nights when Hermione's face is lined with ridges of stress, and Ginny is glad for the opportunity to rub her friend's neck, dig her small freckled fingers into the knots, and listen to Hermione's sighs and moans of relief. She files those sounds away in her brain, calling them up again when she is alone in her bed and her fingers flutter between her legs.

There has only been one night when she thought her heart might actually burst with the agony of wanting and finally having – one night last spring when the girls pooled all their Galleons and Sickles and Knuts and bought heaps of alcohol without the boys. Triple-Strength Butterbeer, Firewhiskey, Muggle vodka and tequila – the house-elves were finding bottles and cups littered around the common room for days afterward. She remembers Hermione passing out after her sixth shot of tequila, and their kisses later, in Ginny's bed, were fast and sloppy and tasted bitter like lime.

She liked watching Hermione sleep that night, not because it was especially cute or peaceful, since Hermione was crashed out in her robes and shoes, dead to the world and certainly to the soft stroking of Ginny's fingers at the small of her back, but because she was in Ginny's bed. For one night, she felt the certainty that Hermione might be _hers_.

In the morning Hermione drank six goblets of water and had forgotten everything about the night before.

Ginny certainly hasn't. She keeps with her the taste of Hermione's darting tongue, the ragged flesh of her often-chewed lips, the pressure of her clumsy fingers against Ginny's small breasts with their darker cocoa-brown nipples, and it's what she remembers when she slides her own fingers over her clit and rubs at her own wetness, whispering Hermione's name.

And now her brother and her best friend are hugging her, and the wetness is on her cheeks, pressed roughly against their robes, and she knows that it's over, that even the most ardent fantasies aren't any match for reality – this reality, that her brother will marry Hermione Granger, that they will wear white matrimonial robes and cut a lavish cake together, move in, build a life, have sex. She tries to give them one more shaky smile, but it's hard, so hard, because she's afraid if she hears one more excited squeal from Hermione, if she sees one more bashful grin from Ron, she'll break apart into a million tiny pieces, like drops of water scattered on the common room floor.

Harry is giving her some absolutely disgusted looks, and she glances at him, certain that he's only giving her disgusted looks to cover the incredulous ones that he'd be giving Ron and Hermione if he could. Ginny's afraid that in another minute _he'll_ break down too, and that's the _last_ thing she wants to happen, short of actually seeing her brother snog Hermione, so she bursts into another flood of tears and smiles, eliciting another round of hugs and back-thumps from the happy couple.

She cries because it's okay for girls to cry, at happy news and sad news, marriages and deaths, and this way, Harry doesn't have to. He knows it, and the private look he gives her is a grateful one.

She cries because Ron and Hermione are in love, really _in love_!, they're getting married and she'll have her first sister. They know it, and their hugs are happy ones.

But she also cries because she knows her dreams have just been cracked in half, and the tears on her face refract a thousand rainbows off her damp cheeks.


	3. The Colour of Glass

Rapidly covering more than two years in the HP universe, this is the story of Ron and Hermione's engagement. Not everyone is happy about it. Part Three, Ron's POV.

* * *

Normally he wouldn't care one fig about what someone's thinking – particularly Harry, because Harry always comes out and tells him anyway; sometimes it takes a while, but Ron always wrangles the full truth from his best mate eventually – but Hermione's constantly reminding him that it wouldn't kill him to be a little more sensitive. "_Sensitive_, Ron," she scolds him, closing her eyes against her gasp when he pinches one coral-coloured nipple lightly between his broad fingers. "It would be – _oh_," she tries to continue, her words falling off into a swallowed sigh, and he grins up at her, triumphant that he's managed to divert her attention, sheepish because – well, hell, she may be right.

He does okay with Ginny, maybe because he understands her pretty well. Youngest children in a big family – that should give them something gin common, shouldn't it? Sometimes he gives her an awkward pat on the shoulder or a scratch on the head the way Hermione does with Crookshanks, and she throws him an embarrassed grin in return. He doesn't always know exactly what's she's thinking, but most of the time he can figure out whether she needs a hug or a nicked cream cake or just a loud, raucous game of wizarding chess.

Fred and George have never paid attention to, or cared about, what people are thinking, either. As far as they're concerned, if people aren't thinking about what a marvelously hilarious joke they've just pulled, then they'd better pull another one quick. It makes the twins easy to laugh with and hard to live with. Ron tends to avoid them when he's feeling glum; it doesn't cheer up him to sprout donkey's ears six times in a row.

Percy is another story entirely. Ron tries to avoid him no matter whether he's feeling down or cheerful or anxious; in fact, the only time Percy is really good company is when Ron needs to be bored to sleep. Of course, it hasn't really been a problem anymore since the end of the war, and Percy has apologized but hasn't really spent time at home since then. R on remembers that they used to be reasonably close, used to be able to tune out explosions and fistfights and shouts of "Expelliarmus!" all around to concentrate on game after game of chess. But they've never really talked, and by the time Ron was old enough to talk about subjects that mattered, he had had also realized that the only things that mattered to Percy were boring things that Ron had no interest in.

As for Bill and Charlie, they're so much older, and have been out of the house for nearly as long as Ron can remember – certainly as long as Ginny can remember – he doesn't know much about them. What they think, how they feel, if they care about what other people think. They've always been close anyway, with just those fifteen months between them, that it's nearly like having another set of twins in the family, who don't share much with their brothers, and don't need much shared with them.

But Harry isn't a brother, although he's as close as one; he's just a friend, just Ron's best mate, and that makes it all different, of course. It means that Ron can't take for granted their relationship, the way he does with each of his brothers, and for the first time he thinks that maybe Hermione is right. "All right, then, Harry?" he asks awkwardly that night, when both boys are changing into their pajamas in the dormitory room. Harry is standing with is back to Ron, methodically buttoning his maroon-striped pajama top, and refuses to turn around even when Ron says his name. "I guess, um – I mean, Hermione said, you know, you and Ginny seemed kind of surprised."

"Hermione said that?" It's Harry's turn to sound surprised, but he still won't turn around to face Ron. He's pulling on his pajama bottoms now, giving Ron a clear (and amusing) view of his lion-printed maroon boxers. It makes Ron chuckle, lightly, and the muscles in Harry's legs tightened involuntarily, but he still refuses to glance back at Ron. "What're you laughing at?"

"Nothing," Ron replies quickly. Making his best mate think he's laughing at him is not, he suspects, a good way to be sensitive. "I mean, why?"

"Why what?"

"You sound, you know, surprised." Yes, that sounds good. It sounds observant and … sensitive. Ron gives a decisive nod, yanking his orange nightshirt over his head carelessly. By the time he's got it on, his red hair is standing on end in a puffy fuzzball, and he tries unsuccessfully to smooth it down, not that it matters much; Hermione said she's got too much work tonight to come up after she's done. For the first time, he gets an idea of what it must be like for Harry to live with that mop of dark hair all the time. "Hermione notices things like that."

"Does she."

Is that sarcasm, or just a tired edginess in his best mate's voice? Harry sounds cool and unruffled, like the smooth glassy surface of the Hogwarts lake, and it's confusing the hell out of Ron. Generally, Harry isn't one to play games. When he's mad he'll let Ron know it – like the time Ron behaved like a first-class git (Hermione's words) at the beginning of the Triwizard tournament – and when he's happy for Ron, he'll let him know it – like when he turned out to be entirely supportive of Ron's trying out for the Quidditch team back in fifth year. Besides, Harry's a guy too, and what guy is actually _good_ at dropping hints and hiding things and keeping secrets? Seamus, for example, had told the entire dorm within thirty minutes of sleeping with Parvati, and Dean couldn't keep his mouth shut about the one date he went on with Ginny, even after Ron threatened to pound him into pumpkin juice in the middle of the night.

So Ron comes to the only conclusion that he can, that something else must be bothering Harry, and he doesn't know what, and he isn't quite sure if he's supposed to ask. That's the problem with learning this sensitivity thing; sure, he's supposed to be more sensitive, but how's he supposed to know _how_? "Erm. You, uh, don't want to talk about it?"

"No." Harry's voice is muffled as he sticks his head inside the box of the deep red curtains surrounding his bed, apparently hunting for something else that's so important he still can't turn around and look at Ron. "I'm going to sleep."

Frustrated, Ron watches as Harry dives into the curtains, disappearing head-first into the sanctity of his bed, more confused than exasperated at this point. Well, at least now he'll be able to tell Hermione that this newfound male-sensitivity thing is a pile of pants. "Hey, Harry?"

"_What_?"

Harry's face comes shoving its way through the curtains, and the look on his face makes Ron stop saying whatever he was planning to say. His best mate looks confused too, ruffled the way Crookshanks does when you pet him the wrong way, and mad – but there's something else there, something that Ron hasn't learned quite enough about sensitivity to read. "Er – nothing."

Harry sighs, and the expression between his bright green eyes changes, smoothing itself into nothing again. Ron watches, and Harry's face makes itself look like glass – flat and even, and anything else Ron wants to say bounces off the rounded edges of his cheeks.


	4. The Colour of Winter

Rapidly covering more than two years in the HP universe, this is the story of Ron and Hermione's engagement. Not everyone is happy about it. Part Four, Hermione's POV.

* * *

She scolds Ron afterward, between kisses and giggles whispered in the quiet dark of the drawn crimson curtains around his bed. "Honestly, Ron, sometimes you have the emotional intelligence – " a kiss against the side of her temple – "of an envelope. Harry and Ginny – " a shiver from the lips pressed onto the top of her spine – "were just standing there, your best mate and my best – " one warmly freckled hand smoothing its way down her bare white shoulder – "friend, you could have at least, you know, hugged them or – _oh_ …" Her small sigh is soft, breathless, as his hand, roughened and slightly chapped from hours of Quidditch practice, circles her breast. "… Or, uh, something."

He grins up at her, half sheepish, half mischievous, as he puts on hand on her bare hip. It looks so dark, so broad and tanned, and she feels very petite and out of breath. Her smile is resigned and teasing in return, because exasperated as she is with his absolute inability to concentrate on anyone's emotions, what his lips and tongue are doing to her nipples and collarbones and earlobes is just _ooooooh_…

Besides, it's not as if he's her only outlet for emotional support. She has Ginny, her best friend, and ever since Padma Patil was made a Ravenclaw prefect and started dating Terry Boot two years ago, she has a lot more understanding and respect for Hermione, so they get along pretty well. (Hermione wishes she could say the same for Padma's sister, but Parvati has never had any respect for anyone's studies, and on the weekend she broke up with Colin and slept with Seamus she told Hermione that she had no idea how she could date just one person, and didn't Hermione get _bored_? Parvati is not a likely candidate for a serious, emotionally-based conversation.) And she journals, furiously, sometimes with the girlish, heart-filled scribbles of a lovesick teenager; sometimes neatly, sprinkling fine sand across the wet ink, but almost always about Ron.

She does talk to Ginny the next day, though, apologizes for Ron's extraordinarily git-like insensitivity. "I told him later, he should've at least said something to you – you and Harry both looked so shocked, you know, I guess I thought you already had an idea. He asked me two weeks ago, we were just waiting for the right time to tell you. Isn't it beautiful?" The red Magician's Stone in her ring, charmed with everlasting love instead of riches or eternal life, catches the faded beam from one wall torch, and suddenly she's off and running again, meaningless babbles that she knows she's babbling, but can't seem to stop, and Ginny grins shyly, pleased for her.

Some days Ginny seems quieter, and Hermione glances twice at her, wondering if she has an exam or a big assignment on her mind. She's taking some awfully hard courses, after all, N.E.W.T. Transfiguration and Herbology and Charms and even Potions. (Ron made a horrible face when Ginny said that, and later he could hardly stop blustering about what a bloody git Snape was, until Hermione licked the side of his hip and told him that please, she really _didn't_ want to think about Snape while they were in bed.)

"Is your coursework hard?" Hermione asks one night, when the wall sconces are burning low, well past midnight, and the house-elves have begun cleaning up already, pretending to ignore Ginny and Hermione, sitting in their sea of books and parchment scrolls. Ginny looks very tired, with red-lined eyes full of exhaustion and worry, and Hermione wonders what she has on her mind that keeps her up so late at night. "Are you having trouble? I'd be glad to help you, you know, I had Transfiguration and Herbology, and Ron – " here another little blush, one that makes her giggle – "Ron's even better at Charms than I am, you know – "

"My classes are fine," Ginny cuts in, sounding irritated; her voice is clipped and comes out shaky, like a small leaking hiss. It's so unlike her that Hermione takes her nose out of _Flying with the Cannons_, which she's promised Ron that she'll read if he finally reads _Hogwarts, A History_, and he said yes, reluctantly at first, and then more quietly, as her fingers and tongue elicited the same word, again and again. So she's reading this horrid book about the most boring sport on earth and all the bloody _orange_ practically blinds her every time she opens it, and now she looks up at Ginny in surprise. The younger girl's lips are set, compressed firmly in a strikingly McGonagall-like expression, her eyes fixated firmly on the scroll she's writing for Professor Vector, and she doesn't even looks at Hermione as she snaps, "I may not be as smart as you, but I don't have a problem with my classes."

"Sorry," Hermione shoots back, more bewildered than annoyed. It certainly isn't like Ginny, and is it her imagination, or did Ginny's voice rise slightly on the last word? But she doesn't know what else to say, how to ask Ginny what else could possibly be wrong, and so she opens Ron's book again, and reads until Ginny packs up her books and leaves for bed without a word, and the next morning she asks Ginny's brother what he thinks the problem is. "Do you know what's wrong with your sister?"

"Ginny?"

"How many sisters do you have?" she quips, shoving half a honeyed biscuit into his open mouth. He looks so cute as he chews thoughtfully, though she admits it would be more pleasant if he learned to chew with his mouth shut, and she shoves his chin closed with a grin. "_Yes_, Ginny. She's been acting … funny. Sort of moody and silent."

Ron shrugs, unconcerned, shoving a stockpile of biscuits inside the pockets of his robes for a mid-morning snack. "Beats me. You should know, shouldn't you? I mean, you're both, you know, _girls_ and all."

She rolls her eyes. "You're impossible. Just because we're both girls doesn't mean I – I mean, d'you understand Harry better than I do, just because you're a guy?"

"Sure," Ron says confidently, without even bothering to think about it; he's too busy washing down the last of his mash with gulp after gulp of pumpkin juice.

"You _are_ impossible."

Her fiancé shrugs again, but Hermione can see that no matter how nonchalant he appears, he's worried, too, because she is. "Maybe she's just feeling out of sorts. She's probably upset because you didn't tell her before, and usually, you know, you tell her … well, stuff."

Hermione can't help laughing at his inelegance, his obvious discomfort – but it's _Ginny_, and that's why he sounds a bit troubled below the casual exterior. She kisses him, and she can taste pumpkin juice on his lips. "You're probably right. Maybe if I let her know what's happening – you know, plans for the wedding and stuff – she'll feel better."

She tries, but it doesn't really seem to help. Monosyllables and tired looks are all she gets from Ginny when she asks where Ginny thinks they should buy their matching white matrimonial robes or who she thinks should make the wedding cake. (Ron suggested asking the house-elves and for once, Hermione didn't sock him. "Well," she said thoughtfully, "at least we know they make good cakes.") But Ginny is nothing but silent, and on Leaving Day, at her last Hogwarts feast, Hermione thinks that Ginny looks relieved – relieved and sad at the same time, and Hermione doesn't know why. She asks the girl who used to be her best friend what's wrong – "You okay, Ginny? Is something the matter?" – but all she gets in return is a fast, perfunctory hug.

Ginny's owls the next year, her last year at school, are more talkative, chummy even, and Hermione assumes that her discomfort and silence last spring had to do with classes or coursework or something equally stressful. She scribbles hastily about plans for the ceremony, the ball afterward, signing each parchment with a big schoolgirl-ish heart for "love," never noticing that her future sister-in-law always writes out "Love, Ginny" back to her.

She and Ron marry on a cold day in mid-December when the sky is a clear gray colour like steel and fog. On the day of her wedding, she notices that both Ginny and Harry look unexpectedly pale in their traditional silver robes that signify the witch and wizard of honour, but she attributes it to the colour of winter filling their normally flushed cheeks.

_finis_


End file.
